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EncryptedWriting
Jan 9

I ask this because I am genuinely curious on your thoughts. I was thinking about this particular topic last night.

In short, I am wondering if you guys think that big name webcomic creators (i.e. tapas or webtoon originals) use pre made stamps of their characters in different positions to make up a scene? For example, I know procreate has a brush that I use which is actually a stamp for braided hair. So I thought, what if people make art of their characters in a different pose and just use that stamp when they feel necessary to use so? Wouldn't it, yknow, save time?

There are some scenarios where a characters facial expression or position are exactly the same. So I wonder if instead of redrawing the entire scene that someone just makes a stamp and voila. Ofc, colors are lighting are a factor.

I don't know, just thought of that. Especially if you have incredibly long episodes and are on a timeline, then it might be something that's considered for studios over traditional drawing each panel.

What are you thoughts on this? Do you think long original webtoons or tapas comics use this method or a hybrid method of traditional and stamping?

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Leyelle
Jan 9

I'm not sure about professionals, I'm pretty sure the artist I was working with last year did that to speed up her process. Her art is pretty crisp, but she's not a pro yet. In the mangas I've read, it definitely looks like they draw every single panel without stamping, but it might be different for webcomics.

inubasket
Jan 9

This is a good question! I do know that tons of artists, including (and especially) big time creators, will copy-and-paste their drawings, just editing facial expressions or panel distance, to save time. But creating actual stamps of different basic poses for smaller/lesser detailed panels is a really creative idea!

I think the only hang-ups would be if the character's clothing/hair style changes a lot, and also having to draw everything based on the angle the stamped pose is already at.

feuersichel
Jan 9

I am pretty sure they do. At least some. I've seen it with some bg characters but as inubasket said, some poses are very similar and only need some adjustments. I personally don't like this too much but it depends on how obvious it is. I can understand the need for it on a thight scedule... Still, if you need to rush your art to such an extreme... Meh, I'm torn.

NickRowler
Jan 9
1

Sometimes when I am in sort of an artistic slump, I have resorted to tracing some of my old panels. I do not do that all the time because I think people would start to notice.

BoomerZ
Jan 9

I would say yes. Stamps, 3D model tracing, and 3D backgrounds are the norm. Specially for korean webcomics. Why do you think every male lead looks exactly the same. Same body type, same hair, same blank stare 100 yards into nothing. Pretty sure most of the "lace" you see on clothing is a brush as it's too perfect for hand drawn. It is just what webcomics are now.

thepenmonster
Jan 9

Way back in the Aughts PvP artist Scott Kurtz admitted that he had a collection of expressions, hands, postures, etc of all his characters that he slapped together to speed up his comic making. I have no doubt many comic artists still do this.

HOWEVER, those stock images were made by him. He didn't trace a CSP figure model or get a brush that did it for him. He put in the work. That's worth a bit of respect.

Take that last bit as you will.

jwabeasley
Jan 10

I second @thepenmonster - lots of artists duplicate backgrounds and character elements. Newspaper strips in the "talking head" format do this a lot. As long as you make the assets yourself, there's no ethical issue with it - but I find the strips that do this to be less entertaining. I prefer if the art is inseparable from the story - and in the case of dialog scenes (the most common use case for these), I really enjoy seeing a good artist give life to specific facial expressions, body language, or add in visual gags, so a duplicated art comic is much less enjoyable.

3D tracing is likewise quite normal, especially for backgrounds. I have no problem with it, except people should go through the effort to personalize their 3D models a bit to keep from looking generic, and it gets a better effect if you trace the elements by hand rather than using rendered outlines.

silverraven0
Jan 10

Dunno about poses but I once saw someone create a stamp for the characters eyes (coloring and all that) to speed thing up. I forgot which artist it was tho.

But even so there's quite a lot of premade poses or skeleton characters in some apps to make poses.

hakei
Jan 10

Very much, yes.
Once you know what to look for, then it becomes obvious how much hair stamps, hand stamps, action effect brushes, 3d clothing, 3D accessories, etc. is used in the official comics.

Take a look around Acon3D, where professionals buy a lot of their assets, and you can see just how much stuff there are to help them make the super long, detailed episodes.

Lensing
Jan 10

Comic artists always did this and they always traced poses and their own work
mostly to save time and for consistency.
They have huge reference file cabinets in the 1950s with photos of poses and
backgrounds to trace.

Dan Decarlo only used side view and 3/4 views for all the characters in Archie
comics and his pinups. He had some standard faces for beautfiul girls which
he used for Betty & Veronica, for pinup girls and for side characters. It´s always
exactly the same face. When you study his work you also find a lot of copied
poses, hand poses, facial expressions, shoes etc.